The Play's the Thing, Part IX

Originally published July 23, 2014

In my continuing series, I discuss The Play's the Thing, a player advice column by Robin D. Laws that ran in Dragon Magazine in the early years of D&D 3rd edition. The point of the column was to help players improve their games for their own enjoyment and that of their fellow players. In addition to reviewing that advice, I'll be providing my thoughts on how it works in actual play.

In the past two weeks, I talked about how you, as a player, can deal with problems that develop within your gaming group. The steps I outlined were:

1. Identify the problem.
2. Identify the problem's causes.
3. Figure out, and learn to respect, the other person's point of view.
4. Solve the other person's problem another way.
5. Present the problem with a possible solution.
6. Be prepared to compromise.

This week we'll focus on understanding your game master's (GM's) perspective and how you can use that to better negotiate with him or her.

Negotiating with Your DM

Issue 303, January 2003

Once you've identified the problem and its causes, you need to know the other person's point of view. Since the GM has been at the heart of many of the problems we have looked at, knowing what types of GMs exist can be extremely helpful in determining which suggestions will work best for your GM.

Each GM's style is unique but a few broad categories can be sketched out. Your GM might fit into more than one category but knowing which styles exist should help you identify what they enjoy about the game and thus gives you something to leverage to get what you want. Here are a few of the more common types of GMing:

Author

GMs who follow the path of the Author seek to create a compelling and often epic story. Working out the details far in advance, he or she steers the game within a predetermined narrative. When it works, your characters become the heroes of an epic tale, like the Fellowship of the Rings. When it fails you feel railroaded between scenes or treated as secondary characters observing while the GM's NPCs take care of the heroics.

When negotiating with the author, you'll want to convince him to loosen his storyline and allow more real choices for your characters. Your solutions should be pitched to show how allowing those choices can still allow him to tell an exciting story. One thing you might emphasize is how the choices of the player characters (PCs) can also give him a sense of being part of the audience, as your decisions lead the story into unexpected places.

Battle Master

By contrast, the Battle Master deals with the immediate: combat. At his or her best, the game is action packed with many interesting and challenging encounters. In the worst case, combat consumes the game as the story become only a vehicle to more fights.

Negotiations with the battle master tend to dwell on improving the balance between combat and other types of scenes (such as roleplaying or investigation). You should focus on highlighting how specific combats might have been given more emotional resonance or tension through earlier roleplaying and investigation scenes. In other words he can make the combats more interesting by using non-combat scenes to invest the players in the stakes or combatants. You might also suggest ways that noncombat abilities can be tested so that your character is properly challenged outside of combat.

Director

The Director is the more flexible form of the Author, spinning stories on the fly and improvising off of the actions of the PCs. This requires the PCs to have interesting goals and the volition to pursue them. If you are a proactive and creative player this can be great. Otherwise you might feel yourself left out as the story gets pushed forward by the GM and other players.

Negotiating with this sort of GM is generally fairly easy, since she wants to work with your ideas. She will generally be happy to work out with you what your character wants and thus develop plot threads from that. So the first step is to just voice your wants whether that be abstract (more combat) or specific (avenge your fallen mentor).

Monty Haul

The "Monty Haul" GM (so-called after the game show host Monty Hall) loves to give out treasure and experience to the players. A power gamer at heart, he or she likes to make everyone feel like a winner. On one hand this GM knows that they are trying to entertain the players. They just resort to material gain to achieve this.

You are unlikely to convince this GM to cut back on the goodies so focus on improving the challenges you face. Suggest ways your characters can all of this loot while still satisfying your own preferences. So if intrigue is your interest, you might ask for an item to allows telepathy or mind control and opportunities to use it. Similarly slug-fest combats can be transformed by magical items that alter terrain.

Off the Racker

The off-the-racker runs things by the book, often using published adventures. They might be new to GMing or simply lack confidence in creating their own material. In this case the game is as good as the material, which can be quite good. However it will also leave less room for customization.

Your negotiations should focus on improving the GM's level of confidence. Praise him when he improvises and creates his own material. If you've GM'ed before, assure him that everyone is nervous at first. Alternatively you might just look for adventures that match what you want in the first place and suggest those to the GM.

World Maker

The World Maker loves to create settings. They may devote endless hours to detailing the world and use the game to showcase the results. Often they treat the setting as a sort of grand experiment and let the PCs do what they want within it. On the negative side, this GM might not correct for a shortage of satisfying stories or exciting fight scenes.

Negotiate with them by focusing on the aspects of the world that you want to spend time on. Often they will be more than happy to spend time adding the additional detail. For more big battles, ask them about warfare within the world and any martial subcultures. Dig into the parts of the world that should yield what you want.

Negotiating Basics

Most problems in gaming (or life) come from a difference in expectations. These include your own. So remember that the game itself might not be bad, merely failing to cater to your particular tastes. What we want to do is convince the GM to adjust the game to feed those tastes.

Assuming you've followed the outline above, you now have identified the problem, its source, your GM's viewpoint, and some possible solutions. Now what do you do?

Next comes the task of negotiation.

The key thing to remember about negotiations is that they are a matter of give and take. Just as you hope to bend your GM to your ends, you in turn will often need to concede a bit as well.

You want to remain emotionally unentangled in this task. Otherwise you will find yourself pursuing two incompatible goals: convincing the GM to do something for you and to be proven right. No one likes to be proven wrong and forcing the issue generally slams the door on any other goal. So give up on the goal of being right (or if it means that much to you, on your friendship with the GM and participation in the game). Focus on the practical goal of convincing the GM to make the changes you want.

So some tips:

• Be Friendly: Be polite while making your case. Many people say they are open to constructive criticism but few people really want their weaknesses pointed out or their viewpoints challenged. So be as polite and non-confrontational as possible.
• Be Deferential: As part of your non-confrontational stance, respect the GM's authority. Couch your suggestions as opinions, i.e. "I'd really enjoy it if there was a little more action in the game". This leaves the GM a lot of room to negotiate how much more action to include without saying anything about how their current game is lacking. By giving them nothing to object to, you remove a potential stumbling block.
• Avoid Abstract Argument: Avoid hypothetical arguments. Reductio ad absurdum will not win an argument. By invoking abstract positions you just harden the other side's position. Instead focus on specific items for your discussion: how this exact problem affects this combat or this situation. If the other party takes the argument to the abstract level, politely but firmly return to the specific dilemma at hand.
• Be Aware of Past Baggage: Let any previous arguments or debates stay in the past. Bringing up the past will only cloud the current issue and possibly prejudiced the GM against you. At the same time, try not to think of the current negotiation as a rematch of a previous conflict. Remember you are trying to get the GM to fix this specific problem and not win an argument. You can't change people but you can convince them to alter their current plans.
• Listen: While you have tried to see the other person's position before, it always helps to keep listening. They have things they want too and those may not be as obvious as you thought. Maybe you discover that your interests are not so far aligned and that he just needs some extra help. Listening is often more helpful than talking.
• Modify Suggestions Accordingly: As you learn more from your GM, incorporate that information into your suggestions. Don't be afraid to admit that you hadn't thought of something. It signals flexibility and makes them more willing to compromise.
• Enlist the Other Party's Help: Demands usually meet resistance but asking someone to help find a solution is harder to resist. You show that you can compromise and the Gm then naturally feels obligated to reciprocate. Cooperative problem solving is much more effective than a battle of will.

I hope this helps you navigate the minefield of fixing problems in your games.